DECISION POINT: In a loose $1/$2 cash game the Under the Gun player limps and you raise to $16 from Middle Position with A♦Q♦. Action folds to the Button who calls, the Blinds fold, and the UTG player calls. The flop comes K♥8♦5♦ and the Under the Gun player bets $24. Action is on you, what do you do here?

PRO ANSWER: We are playing a loose $1/$2 cash game where most players have ~$200 stacks. We have $400 and the Small Blind has us covered with $850. We are dealt AdQd in Middle Position and the UTG player open limps. MP1 folds and action is on us.

AQs is well ahead of a UTG limping range and while our hand plays reasonably well multi-way, it’s too high up in our range to just limp behind. We elect to raise to $16 total and everyone else folds. The Button cold calls and the original UTG limper also calls.

The flop is Kh8d5d and to our surprise, the UTG player leads out first to act for $24. When we are the preflop raiser and another player leads into us (commonly referred to as a “donk” bet) they are usually doing so with certain specific parts of their range.

The UTG player may have flopped a medium strength hand and is asking us the question “Is my hand good?". Given the specific board texture with two cards to a flush on the board UTG may be leading with a made hand that is afraid action might check through and doesn’t want a scary card to come on the turn.

Very good players will also mix a balanced range of strong hands and draws along with some medium strength hands as well, although it is important to note that most really good players wouldn’t have open limped UTG and then called an 8x raise preflop.

With a stack to pot ratio (SPR) of just over 3, stacks can get in quite quickly here. Against the UTG leading range we often have 12 outs, and sometimes will have as many 15. Ace high will sometimes be the best hand against portions of this leading range such as 76s.

If stacks were deeper we could make a more compelling case for just calling and playing deep stacked in position. With these stacks we are quite happy to just win the pot now, and even if called we often have close to 50% equity against the portion of UTG’s range we would get all-in against.

Since our opponent may be asking if their hand is good, we want to answer their question with a resounding NO and put them in a tough place with a semi-bluff raise.

Raising is the best play.